Hi... I'm new here. I'm 27, soon to be 28. Hubby is 36. We've been together for 3 and a half years and are common law married, but not legally married. We've struggled before, went to counseling, dealt with a few things, and more or less worked things out.

I am *not* blameless in our issues, but I don't feel like I can get a fair opinion from 'my' friends or 'our' friends who know us personally because most people want to take sides. I love my husband, am a devoted wife, there is no infidelity in our relationship, but we're not communicating, we're not meeting our needs, and we're not happy.

The current issue... For 20 years I have been involved in horses to some degree, some of those years as a pro, some as an ammy. He and I met while I was healing from a catastrophic accident, so I wasn't riding, but did own two horses and my mom owned one. I still have my two horses, have since sold my mom's horse. Until last month one of my horses has been leased out or in a free board situation. As of today I'm fully financially responsible for both of my horses. He's upset about the money I'm spending on the horses ($500 a month, not pocket change).

I work a full time job and make almost $40,000 a year. He works as an independent contractor, is always on the road and makes less than $18,000. We have not combined our finances; I carry our health insurance ($400 a month); I pay half his car payment ($90); I pay half our car insurance ($45); and I pay half our cell phone bill ($45). We maintain two households because I got a job 2 hours from our house; the house he owns (and owned before we met) is in a state of renovation and is IMO not livable.

My horse came off lease, is injured, and I can't afford to pay his bills because I just shelled out $125 to put brake rotors on hubby's car. Hubby has a supercharged sports car because he 'drives a lot of miles and it's what he wanted', but it's a money pit. Our other car is his old Sports Car - I have it temporarily until we get our taxes back and buy me a truck. We traded my car in and I paid money towards the Down payment on the new car.

At this point I have two lame horses and they're a financial drain. Hubby asked if I was going to get a second job, take up more web design clients, or teach lessons. I feel like saying that I'd just like him to support himself and then I could support my animals. There aren't any options for the horses, except euthanasia.

The entire situation with my horses is making me feel very put upon and frustrated. He's got a fast car with racing rotors and a lot of $$$$ into it, and I'm scrimping with less than $20 until I get paid in 10 days. And, that paycheck will pay my rent and my horse's board, with $20 left over. There is not enough money to support his 'needs' and my horse's needs.

I feel stretched too thin at this point; I just bought Xmas for his family, our neice's Bday present, his BIL's Bday, and we've both got birthdays coming up that we can't afford to celebrate. I feel like I'm putting the horses before my marriage, but I also feel like he's putting his fast cars before our marraige. He spent $30 on a video game last week when he couldn't afford to feed himself. He has a $1000 laptop because our older one wasn't good enough.

I feel like he can't classify the difference in wants and needs. His 'needs' include fast cars and fast PCs for gaming, and if it weren't for me buying groceries for both of us he wouldn't eat. I feel like I'm raising a child instead of married to a partner who supports me. He refuses to have anything to do with the decision on my oldest horse, because 'it has nothing to do with him'.

I have my own business and work a good job, and can't afford to eat at McD's once a week lately.

I want to add that I have a very high sex drive and he has none, which tends to compound our issues.

I am very independent and self sufficient, but I want someone who is man enough to care for me. Just because I can change my own oil and change a tire doesn't mean I want to do it all the time.

Lately my husband has been very quick to put me down or tell me I can't manage my money because I'm constantly broke. But, if I didn't have him draining my funds I wouldn't be broke (or if I was broke I'd be having a hell of a time getting that way! :lol: ). He's quick to put me down, will call me fat, will call me stupid and tell me I can't make it without him.

I've stood by him through his dad's recent illness and death. I've supported us when he walked off from jobs. I'm always willing to put his needs first, and whatever I have he's welcome to, but I don't feel like I'm getting that support from him.

A man does not own a car he can't afford. You had your horses before you had him and he should not expect you to get rid of them.

You are not married, what you have done is dated full time for many years. Yes the custom of commomn law remains but the need for it is no longer justified. People no longer live so remote that their is no gov or religious authority to get people hitched.

What you have is two people that are renters in a relationship. Refusing to co-mingle money and manage it with a signal best for the family goal.

It seems that your H has not grown up and wants all his toys. Toys that he can not afford. Can't afford ones' life style then one does not buy faster computers and more video games. $1,000 will buy materials that will get his house finished.

It's one thing that if a wife came into a marriage very wealthy and feels the need to keep her wealth safe. Many a H has squandered a W's inheritance.

As to H having no sex drive. Makes me think affair. And it seems easy to do with his work schedule always being lite.

Your H wants a maid, chef, laundry, ATM, not a wife. Dump him. He brings nothing to the table.

Also he refuses to live a life style that matches his income.

It's one thing to not be financially successful when giving ones all. Another thing to not to to well as a wage earner when skating by. AND, when things are tight to tell the W that already is bringing in twice the money why doesn't she get a second job.

You have a H milking you dry. He gets all the cars, computers, video games, etc, you get his bills and no SF.

Then your to be made to feel guilty about keeping your horses.

I don't believe in legal state marriage and do not ever plan to have a legal marriage.


I have offered him to manage the money many times over; it would be less stress for me. And, I don't know how to put this, but the way we do things now doesn't feel right. If we're in this for the long haul, then we need to be in this. He did agree to manage our money when I get another promotion (probably within 6 months) and am making more money. I don't care what he spends money on, as long as my horses are cared for, I have food in the cabinet, gas in my car, and my bills are paid. But, he doesn't seem to understand or care about 'good of the family' goals.

We traded in my car and I have his old car right now. It has no heat, and the repair is $$$$. I don't drive much and I'm okay with it, but when he's home and I say I'm going to take the new car it's a huge fight and he'll make me pay for gas. He worries about $2 or $3 between us, and that just feels so petty to me.

I wanted us to buy a new, cheap Kia with a warranty, but he wouldn't hear of it. It wasn't good enough for him. At the time I had an ancient, primer SUV because I hate having car payments. Nothing worked, except the engine, but it got me around just fine.


That money would have put oil in the tank at his house; we have no heat there, have a pellet stove and are buying pellets by the bag. No oil in the tank, no central heat. It was 50 degrees in the house the last weekend I spent at the house.


He travels every week - leaves Sunday, comes home on Thursday. But, if he's having an affair he's hiding it well. There's no unexplained phone calls, atm transactions, cc transactions. I see all the statements.

We went to the doctor and he was DX'ed with prostatis due to his driving all the time, but he hasn't done the treatments or taken the meds. Most of the time I can deal with our once a week schedule, but sometimes when he's home I get so frustrated and push the issue and he gets mad that I'm begging for sex.


I came here to find resources for making this work...

You work hard

He dosen't

It works for him

Hi and welcome to Marriage Builders. This site will offer you a great program for your marriage, but it takes 15 hours of undivided attention time from both of you a week. In fact, for creating romantic love again it takes 20 hours a week, and 15 hrs to maintain it. The basic concepts are available on the top of the page and also under Most Popular links.


This sounds like you have set those goals alone and he just doesn't get it. Reading your posts makes me feel that you are willing to make an effort to save your relationship ONLY under certain conditions and to the certain extent, and these better be your set of conditions, and AS LONG as your horses are taken care of. He is, after all, a grown man, not an unruly teenager, and this is not your call to make him change or change him. Only he can change himself if he chooses to.

Anyway, you may need 2 very good books - Lovebusters and His Needs, Her Needs by Dr. W. Harley. These books give you a very practical plan how to get rid of lovebusters and start focusing on fulfilling each others needs. Before that you need to sit down and talk to each other of what is that you both want from the relationship and are you willing to give it a try.

I'm sorry to hear that you don't believe in marriage. May I ask why?


When you have chosen not to commit, then this is exactly the thing you will get - half in, half out relationship.

This is the site for helping to save the marriages.

I think the first step is to understand that there is a huge difference between being married and living together. One is a committment and the other is a tenuous month to month agreement based on whether or not the other person pleases you. Living together is only a month to month agreement until something better comes along. Ask yourself which you treat better, a rental car or one you own? It is the same dynamic in marriage. So, we can't very well give you marriage advice when you are not married.

What we can give you is advice devoted to DATERS. And that is to tell you that dating is test drive for marriage. When the test drive fails, it is time to move onto the next candidate. That is what I would advise. Move on, OR separate and follow Dr Harley's suggestions in [u]Buyers, Renters and Freeloaders[/u] on how to turn a renter/freeloader relationship into a real marriage. Turn to the chapter about "The Curse of Living Together Before Marriage." It will likely be a real eye opener.

He addresses the dynamic here: Living Together Before Marriage

This comment is the hallmark of renters relationships. Renters tend to practice sacrifice and folks who sacrifice always KEEP SCORE. When the score is uneven, resentment begins followed by demands to even the score. Something like 75% of the domestic violence in the US is committed by couples shacking up or who started their marriages shacking up, because they are in the habit of using abusive tactics to even the score.

My suggestion is to separate and correct the basic foundation of your relationship rather than distracting yourself with specific conflicts. You will ALWAYS have these conflicts until the source is corrected, and the source is that yours is a non-committed renters relationship.

I'm at work, but we do have a *moral* commitment and unless you know the legal ins and outs of our life you'd not know that we weren't married. We are in this for life and to remove him from my health insurance and work benefits I have to have a common law divorce.

You are not committed in reality, though. Either of you could legally go down to the courthouse and marry someone else tomorrow. If I go down to the car lot and tell the dealer "I am committed" to a car on his lot but never bother to sign a paper or come up with any money, how serious is my "committment?" Wouldn't he rightly conclude I was just talking smack?

The fact that you can't differentiate between marriage and living together tells us all we need to know about your approach to this relationship. The fact is that he can walk away today and get married tomorrow.

Sorry, but that is the simple truth. Not trying to offend you, but you can't expect others to treat your relationship with any more seriousness than you do.

And more importantly, if you don't believe in marriage why are you trying to convince us you are married? That always amazes me about folks who live together. They insist that we treat their "relationship" the same as a marriage, after they have just dismissed it as nothing more than a piece of paper out of the other side of their mouth.

Do you know what your state's provisions are for common law marriage? Are you just saying you are common law married, or have you actually confirmed that?

Yes, we've confirmed it, we're common law under SC's common law. And, we have Power of Attorneys, Living Wills, etc... to protect each other and our assets should something happen. He's my spouse on all my health insurance, life insurance, and company benefits, auto insurance, etc...

Before he took the job where he was out of town 5 days a week; now we have sometimes one evening a week and the weekends. We go on a date every week - sometimes it's just dinner and sitting and talking for a while, sometimes it's the car club, sometimes it's the horse auction. We try to do cheap/free things. The planning of all our dates falls on my shoulders, he won't plan anything. And, I try to make sure we have every Saturday together with few distractions. This past week we did have to go to his mom's, but it's a two hour drive and I count drive time as quality time.


I feel like I came into this with 3 horses; I downsized and sold a horse. I then downsized and leased one of my horses. But, at the end of today I still have two injured horses who are worthless and can't be sold or leased. The only option for the horses is me ot care for them, or to put them to sleep. He doesn't agree with euthanasia for them and is pitching a fit over that, and he doesn't agree with me keeping them. There are no other options for the horses and I can't seem to get him to consider any options. He thinks I should take them to auction, but they're 1) lame, 2) old, and 3) they stand a good chance of going to slaughter or being abused/starved. If he weren't putting the screws to me for considering euthanasia I wouldn't be so frustrated right now.


I don't agree with the politics of marriage as they are today in the USA. I have no issue with common law or religous marriages, I just don't care that the state gives their approval to my marriage.

Melody,

I'm sorry you don't recognize our union as marriage. We are certainly not month to month; he's on my health insurance, receives all of the spousal benefits from my job, we have power of attorneys, wills, living wills, etc... to protect the other person in the event that something were to happen. He and I are in this for life and are 100% committed, despite not having the state's blessing on our union. Our state and our employers certainly recognize our common law marriage.

Steph

From my perch on the interwebs, it looks like you believe you are married and are acting that way.

However, I don't see how he's acting that way. He's gone, he depends on you. You are more his parent, taking care of him than an equal partner.

Is this how you want to live?

I don't recognize what he's doing as being part of a marriage, legal or otherwise.

Which I think is a reason why states really don't care about why marriage dissolve. Not to fully hijack what you are saying here.

However, I think there is a serious benefit to the state both caring about the definition of marriage to help preserve the family, but also what it takes to end a, as you call it, state approved marriage.

Right now, anyone can marry and anyone can divorce for no reason whatsoever, and any children who are created as part of that marriage are split away from one parent.

In most cases, that is not good for the child. So if the state really cared about children, especially children of single parents, they would make it far more difficult to get divorced. Not just "I don't feel like being married to this person anymore, so I'm going to unilaterally end the marriage."

If folks don't care about what constitutes marriage, then they won't care much about what constitutes valid reasons to grant a divorce.

Guess what, that's what we have, divorce on demand. Who suffers? The children and the parents who are largely shut out of their children's lives simply because one of them no longer feels like being married.

I'll stop now, but it's attitudes like yours that help support divorce on demand.

I'm all for divorce for those who are willing to stand up and prove misbehavior by a spouse. If your spouse is a cheater or abuser, instead of quietly divorcing them so someone else can be married by them, we need to make their abuse and/or adultery public to serve as a warning to others.

Instead, our society has gone for expediency. No wonder cheaters or abusers can marry and leave an ever larger trail of victims behind them.

I think it does matter to society. I don't think society is any better because of no fault divorce on demand. It's far worse in my opinion.

But since marriage doesn't really have any meaning to many folks just as you've described it, divorce has taken on the same insignificance. One can divorce just because they no longer feel like being married today.

Not to blame you, just pointing out what the social apathy you covey becomes when adopted by ever larger portions of society.

I want to make our relationship work; I do not want to walk away from this.

The origins of the marriage license horify me and until 100 years ago there were no marriage licenses. I refuse to be any part of that, now, tomorrow, or in 10 years.

And, there will never be any children from me, nature made sure of that.

Is he willing to work? Not just at a job, but on the relationship? It will be exhausting if you are the only one working on the relationship.

I don't know. He's coming home tonight and I'm going to talk to him about it.